I can spend hours admiring the perfect lives in the bubble that is Instagram - The perfectly dressed children, the latest Zara bag, the adventures en famille - all with a perfect blowdry.
Then I drag myself back to my reality - peeling potatoes and wondering if I should worry about the naked to clothed ratio my children have demonstrated this summer.
My hair is usually scrapped up in a bun (not the pretty, messy kind) and my laundry room makes me want to weep.
That's why, when we came across this Instagram account highlighting the 'sham' of perfect parenting I felt an immediate kinship.
Floor covered in toys and blankets...tick.
Barefoot children climbing into the fridge every 25 seconds...tick.
What a revelation amongst the perfectly carved out pictures I scroll through on my social media feed. These mums are my tribe.
The project is the brainchild of Erika Roa, Lacey Monroe and Natasha Kelly. They founded the Sham of the Perfect, a photography project that is dedicated to document family photography and all the messes, tantrums and memorable moments that happen when you aren't busy trying to make everything look perfect.
Roa explained to the Huffington Post:
“If our images had to be tidy we’d never be able to shoot in our own homes, and if our homes were ever tidy enough to shoot in, then the images would seem completely dishonest years from now.
We decided to focus on our families and turn our cameras inward to examine what it means to be a family in today’s world"
So next time you are tempted to filter the hell out of that family trip to the park, think twice and remember that sometimes to embrace the chaos and show it for what it really is....real family life.
